Sandinistas Reportedly In Joint-rule Accord

February 07, 1991|By Nathaniel Sheppard Jr., Chicago Tribune.

MANAGUA, NICARAGUA — Moderate forces in the new civilian government and in its predecessor, the Sandinista Front, have worked out a secret agreement on joint rule in the country, political sources say.

The arrangement, under which most major political decisions are to be made through a process of compromise, has angered the ideologically rigid left wing of the Sandinistas and the right wing of the U.S.-backed government, according to some involved.

The Sandinistas, who ruled Nicaragua for 10 years, were defeated in elections last February by a political coalition headed by now-President Violetta Chamorro and known as UNO.

Sources in and close to the government said UNO`s lack of political experience and inability to organize a loyal grass-roots support network had left officials no choice but to seek the cooperation of the Sandinistas.

``They (the Sandinistas) showed they were in position to make good on their promise to rule from below by pulling Sandinista unionists off their jobs in May and July,`` said a foreign diplomat. ``It is not a well-kept secret that they (the government) must placate the Sandinistas on most of the major decisions they make.``

A Sandinista official said the new arrangement was ``implicit but not explicit. There is a strong lobby in the Legislative Assembly; we have established control over certain key agencies, including the military, and have five Sandinista ministers in government.

``If Chamorro wants something, she has to negotiate it with us,`` he said. ``If she does not there could be a social explosion.``

The official said the Sandinistas were instrumental in the government`s ability to hold a week of national dialogue last year. ``The trade unions were not going to participate,`` the official said. ``But the leadership, after certain promises were made in meetings with the government, told them to cool it and not disrupt the meetings.``

The Sandinistas` coziness with the government is reflected in the new appearance and softer tone of Barricada, the Sandinistas` official newspaper. Its logo of a soldier behind sandbags aiming an AK-47 has been replaced by a 10-gallon hat symbolizing Augusto Sandino, the Nicaraguan revolutionary who inspired the Sandinista movement. A recent front-page editorial explained that the paper would take a more cooperative posture toward the government and toward rebuilding the destitute nation.

Government officials refused to be interviewed on the subject, but Sandinistas expressed contrasting views on the desirability of the new arrangement.

``We say officially that there is no co-government but that we have some influence in government because we are the best organized political party,``

said Luis Carrion, a ranking Sandinista official.

``We have high-level contacts with the government fairly regularly in which we tell them our point of view or they ask our view on things they plan to do,`` he said. But ``sometimes they pull off things without telling us or the Legislative Assembly in advance.``

Pressed for details, Carrion said meetings are held at least twice a month. The Sandinistas usually are represented by former President Daniel Ortega, Sergio Ramirez, Jaime Wheelock and Carrion. Government representatives include Antonio Lacayo, minister of the presidency; Carlos Hurtado, minister of government; and Alfredo Cesar, assembly president, Carrion said. Ramirez was Ortega`s running mate in the February elections.

Lacayo, to whom Carrion referred as ``the prime minister,`` is widely regarded as the most powerful political figure in the government, even more powerful than his mother-in-law, the president, who often is not present at key planning meetings.

Asked what role Chamorro had in the governing arrangement, Carrion said,

``She affixes her signature to every agreement.``

Conservatives in the government, led by Vice President Virgilio Godoy and Managua Mayor Arnoldo Aleman, oppose the agreement with the Sandinistas. They have called for the resignations of Lacayo, Hurtado and others involved.

Many Sandinistas also bristle at the power-sharing arrangement and derisively refer to the Sandinista participants as ``social democrats.``

``There are two problems with this arrangement,`` said Francisco Lopez, a Sandinista founder who heads the National Institute for Social and Economic Studies. ``It makes it appear that we have reneged on the revolutionary principles we spent 11 years fighting for, and we begin to help justify all the mistakes this government is making.

``We also run the risk of demobilizing the very sectors which were the key to our support. We lose the perspective of an organization working at the public level and start negotiating the problems of our country at the highest levels of leadership,`` Lopez said.

``This co-government idea developed during the period of transition for the new government. It is a social democrat-style not viable among the bases of Sandinista support-women, workers` groups, small industry, intellectuals and artisans,`` Lopez said.

``In theory those involved in co-government say `We are Sandinistas and have the people`s interest at heart,` `` said Norma Cuadra, a Sandinista activist. ``In practice we haven`t seen this. Decisions are made at the highest levels.

``There is currently a class struggle within the movement between the working class and the elite. The elite, or social democrats, agree with the elitist end of UNO that neoliberalism can solve the country`s problems,`` she said. ``They are the same as the technocrats in UNO but less brutal in their decisions.``